The art of it

Some modern ‘big issues’ that constantly reoccur (or is it ‘never fade away’) have probably occupied the minds of great thinkers since time immemorial.

Three easy examples coming to me as I begin typing are the questions ‘How did the universe begin?’, ‘Does God (or a Supreme Being of some sort) exist, or is there no such thing?’ and ‘Climate change or not?’.

In each of the above logic, rationality and the appliance of science lie at the core of the debates because, to some degree or another (and that’s another aspect the protagonists like to argue about) they necessarily tend to chip away at the notion that unsupported-by-the-evidence belief or faith can ever be a sensible route to determining the fundamental black-and-white questions that all human beings sometimes ask themselves.

A while back – and you’ll have to forgive me for being a bit hazy about such things these days, but it may be a decade, or possibly even two, ago now – when scientist Richard Dawkins was at the height of his atheist penchant for tweaking the noses of all those who believed in God, some of those with faith attacked him for his simplistic and arrogant view that science had all the answers.

Dawkins (or was it someone with similar views?) responded to the effect that they were barking up the wrong tree.

On the contrary – he maintained – science does not, and would never, claim it had the answers to everything.

Instead it just keeps throwing up theories that seem to explain everything – not least because human society needs to know whether e.g. (1) the sun is going to come up every day, or (2) why it is that, left to their own devices, if things are ‘let go’ they drop to the ground, simply to be able to plan how to order its infrastructure.

However, this is always only ever on the basis that these theories ‘do for now’, in other words, only until (as is always possible) they are disproved and/or someone comes along with a new one which manages to explain ‘everything’ better – or at least more comprehensively – than any previous version.

Here are a couple of examples:

Earlier this week the media reported that a scientist was now suggesting that Stephen Hawking’s famous Big Bang theory to explain the beginning of the universe was wrong and that in fact new research demonstrated that the universe operated via a cycle of similar Big Bangs.

Apparently Professor Hawking has now shot back, defending his theory and attacking this new one, so this issue may run and run for all I know …

Then again, today there are media reports reviewing an article by scientific experts upon the subject of global warming that appears in the journal Nature and re-asserts that serious ‘climate change’ is happening far faster than previous thought.

The thrust of their conclusions is that the world’s current scheme to combat it is completely inadequate and those world statesmen who deny climate change – e.g. such as President Trump and those who sail with him – need to wake up and smell the coffee.

See the article by Ian Johnston, Environmental Correspondent, as appears today upon the website of – THE INDEPENDENT

The above meandering preamble brings me to the subject of politics as it is currently operating in the UK.

I understand that these days there are perfectly respectable scientific theories doing the rounds that suggest either that ‘dreams are reality, and vice versa’ (if you see what I mean) and/or that more than one, even several, versions of human society may exist alongside each other in parallel universes.

Rather in the manner that, when I was aged about six and someone asked me to consider – really consider – where I had been before I was born, and also (even further back) what might have been out there before the universe first came into existence … issues that have left me terminally puzzled to this day, I might add … when it comes to the ongoing Westminster political scene, for the past eighteen months or so it has felt to me as if I have been taking part in some mass Virtual Reality game and that – either at any moment of my choosing I could take my VR headset off, or (perhaps worse) have it ripped from my head, and be forced to face the world as it really is.

And I’m not sure I’ve really wanted to do that, if you see what I mean.

Some in my social circle, expecting me to be in a state of permanent catatonic rage given the litany of bizarre recent events, have expressed themselves to feel wrong-footed and/or disappointed when I have assured them that, on the contrary, I remain as calm and sanguine as the day I still remember so well when, playing park soccer in Holland Park, I surprised not a few spectators (and indeed myself) by slotting home the ball from three yards out between a goal consisting of two piles of tracksuits – this feat in circumstances where the goalie concerned was indisposed having pulled a hamstring on the halfway line and a colleague had then executed a perfectly-timed pass on the run from the wild beyonds of the left wing tramline.

How so, I keep being asked.

Well, it goes like this. In politics nothing ever surprises me – and therefore I’m slightly puzzled whenever those involved in it every express shock and indignation at what has occurred and/or whatever new decision or policy their opponents might be proposing.

Take as an example the opposition parties now hurling abuse at the Tories’ ‘confidence and supply’ deal with Northern Ireland’s DUP to stay in power.

Yes, it’s grubby, involves a bung (and indeed possible reprehensible for all the other reasons they’re managing to come up with), but what did they expect?

It’s politics, chaps! Would they have done any different had they been in Mrs May and her party’s embarrassing position?

I think not. Apparently in the days of Gordon Brown, a deal between the Labour Party and the DUP was under active consideration as a means of keeping the Tories out. That fact doesn’t surprise me either – and nor would I have had a problem with it had such a deal come to pass.

And – I mention this with due respect to those who perished – when it comes to the awful Grenfell Tower fire, why am I not surprised that the opposition (and also some Tory backbenchers) are up in arms at the news that the cladding used on said tower block – and now apparently in all 120 of those others recently investigated around the country – did not comply with the standing health & safety regulations in force at the time it was put in place?

Or, indeed, that yesterday in Parliament at PMQs, Mrs May archly pointed out that the health & safety regulations that were apparently ‘freed up’ (and/or made subject to slacker standards than previously) were originated by Tony Blair’s Labour Government of 2005?

Same answer, folks.

Today I read a piece on the political web blogsite Guido Fawkes suggesting that – far from being laid back and adopting a ‘hard’ approach to its side of the Brexit negotiations on the one hand – on the other, the EU is quietly panicking about how it’s going to fund itself and carry on once the UK has departed.

See here for the details – GUIDO FAWKES

Perhaps the current Houses of Parliament chaos and uproar over the state of the UK’s negotiating position and how to take things forward is but a storm in a tea cup.

Who knows, perhaps we could now practically name our price for agreeing to stay inside the EU and the EU would take our hand off in its desperation to accept it?

Who knows … and indeed who cares?

[Can anyone help me take this VR headset off?]